


Smoke in My Throat

by willhanniclary



Series: Wind Them Up [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, but not together - Freeform, hannibloom, sex and also guns, this is really angsty I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:24:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willhanniclary/pseuds/willhanniclary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am in trouble, she thought to herself.</p><p>(but for all the wrong reasons)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke in My Throat

**Author's Note:**

> I HAD A MIGHTY NEED TO WRITE SOME HANNIBLOOM AFTER THAT PROMO

“Are you going to shoot me, Alana?”

His tone was even. Hannibal could have been asking her if she wanted a beer. But there was something utterly reptilian in his eyes that send blaring, red flashes of _danger danger danger_ pulsing through Alana Bloom.

He studies her for a frigid moment while the color drains from her face and her throat closes and her mind quickens, trying to fumble with the heavy metal in her hands and point it straight and true. Straight towards a man she’d known so well hours ago, and now did not recognize; bloodstained and predatory, assessing her with frigid calculation and narrowed eyes. Her entire chest feels like it is collapsing in onto itself like the violent death of a star, the agony a blade slipped between her ribs and twisted. In that instant, all Alana can think is that Will Graham had been _so right_ and they had been _all wrong_.

*~*~*

_It was just the two of them that night, nothing like the opulent dinner parties he was so renowned for hosting, though he was planning one imminently. Alana was glad for the privacy; as much as she politely socialized with people in her line of work, she didn’t have enough energy for it now. The week had been taxing; Beverly Katz was dead, sliced into six elegant, horrific puzzle pieces. The man she considered herself in love with at one point was, perhaps, lacking humanity she had believed existed inside him. Most jarring, though, was the idea that she very nearly lost Hannibal. Nearly saw him hung as he bled out, a perversion of a sacrificial lamb. Every time she imagined the scene in her mind’s eye she saw Will, cracking open a well inside her as deep and terrible as anything. Only gazing at Hannibal across the table, alive and smiling at her, seemed to abate the reverberating ache._

_“It feels redundant to keep telling you what a wonderful cook you are, Hannibal. Should I refrain?” Alana teased lightly._

_The corners of Hannibal’s mouth quirked upwards in amusement at he took an elegantly cut bite of his meal. Had he told her it was venison? “Please don’t. I’m a horrible narcissist.”_

_She chuckled lightly. “In that case, the food is especially delicious tonight.” He raised his glass and they toasted, their glasses meeting mid-way across the table with a satisfying clink._

_“It’s pleasing to hear your compliments, but better to hear you laugh. I do not believe I’ve heard that sound once this week.” His expression had shifted from teasing to serious. “However, that does not change how grateful I am to you for playing nurse.”_

_Her eyes flickered to his arms, unbandaged now, sporting puckered violet scarring that was just beginning to heal. “How are you feeling?”_

_“I’m more concerned with you. We’ve hardly had a chance to discuss Beverly Katz. Did you know her well?”_

_Alana swallowed hard. There had been a few times where, at invitation, she’d gone out with agents from the FBI for the occasional beer or two and enjoyed their company as though they all weren’t earlier examining mutilated bodies and blood spatter. It was enjoyable, she remembered. Beverly was always the loudest, glad to harass Agents Zeller and Price into bouts of rolling laughter. The sound felt like it was ringing in her ears now. “Only in passing.”_

_“Very sad.” Hannibal mused quietly, slicing a piece of his dinner and consuming it thoughtfully. “Will believes-”_

_“Stop, Hannibal.” Alana cut him off swiftly. His gaze lifted to her, surprised and curious, “I’m not in the business of caring what Will believes anymore. He…” She struggled to get the words out, even a week after the fact. “He tried to have you killed.”_

_Hannibal actually shrugged. “He believed he was avenging his friend.”_

_Alana’s silverware fell to her plate with an appalling clatter. “Are you seriously defending Will Graham right now?” Irritation had escalated into anger, though, Alana knew it was misplaced. It wasn’t Hannibal she was furious with._

_He waited through a prolonged pause before gently laying his fork and knife down. “I never wanted to doubt Will.”_

_“I’m just beginning to.” She admitted quietly. “I’m sorry.”_

_Hannibal nodded, accepting her apology. “Is it his innocence you doubt? Or his motivation to recover?”_

_Alana considered for a moment. “Both.” Her voice was bluer than she’d intended. He nodded, not in agreement, but understanding. That was what Alana so loved about Hannibal; she always felt perfectly understood._

_“And do you doubt my innocence?” He inquired offhandedly, taking a slow sip from his wineglass._

_“Of course not.” Alana told him, perhaps a beat sooner than required._

_Hannibal glanced back to his former protégé, pleased. “I am glad.” The heel of her shoe brushes some upraised malformation on the mahogany floor, but it does not capture her attention. Hannibal’s smile does._

*~*~*

Deciding something, he stalks down the lengthy corridor that separates them. The already bloodied knife glints with his movements and there is nothing, _nothing_ in his eyes but intent to kill.

“Hannibal-”she warns, _don’t make me do it, don’t make me do it._ Alana locks her elbow and tries to see someone else, but all she can see is Hannibal, carving tomatoes into roses. Hannibal, teaching her a few simple bars of a song he composed on his harpsichord. Hannibal, grinning at her, as they toast over an elegantly assembled meal.

Oh, God-

“Stop!” Alana shouts at him, frantic, but he does not relent. As though he didn’t even hear her, he continues.  “Hannibal, I will shoot you!”she warns, her voice breaking into a shrill octave. But there is nothing but the sickening clip of his immaculate shoes against the hardwood floor, the blood rushing in her ears, and the onslaught of memories flashing in her mind’s eye.

*~*~*

_Ever the gentlemen, his hand rested on her lower back to guide her to the door. Dessert had passed without any further mention of the uneasiness at the FBI or murderers or Will Graham. They spoke about other patients, shared interests, things that felt (for all intents and purposes) normal. Sometimes, if she really tried, Alana could ignore everything else, as though she had blinders on. But it was easier when she was with Hannibal._

_He retrieved her coat from the closet and helped her into, it, calloused fingers brushing her neck. He’s too spatially aware not to have noticed, she thought, and that was the precise moment when she was on to him, because she was too smart not to be. “Your company is always a pleasure, Alana.” he told her politely._

_“As is yours.” She turned to face him as she spoke, suddenly flushed with heat. It wasn’t as though Hannibal had never flirted with her. He’s just never done it after nearly dying, and she could feel potent affection rising somewhere above her navel. Something had shifted, in his face, in his stance. Always willfully distant, always carefully separated, Hannibal Lecter suddenly felt so, so close. Call it out, or let it go? “Hannibal…”_

_A gleam shot through his eyes like a falling star at her use of his name, glimmering with amusement and pleasure and something utterly satisfied, lasting for barely a second. Hannibal moved closer, a deliberate motion. “Alana.” He mused back to her, close and closer still. I am in trouble, she thought to herself._

_(but for all the wrong reasons)_

_Hannibal loomed over her and took another step, placing his face so close to hers that she could feel his breath. Alana did not move, did not cower, because it is not her nature to do either. The very fact that she didn’t felt like an invitation, and soon his nose brushed against her own. Neither of them closed their eyes to wait and it feels like a duel, a dance, one that begins when his lips brush hers._

_His kiss was firm and deliberate. In response, she sealed her palm to the back of his neck to push him closer. A breath, gasped, moved between them as he encircled her waist with his hands, brushing the smooth fabric of her dress with his fingertips. She stifled a low note in her throat, and the noise was like a gunshot beginning a race, setting something alight in the pair._

_Hannibal enveloped her with an intense spike in vigor, backing her against his front door. This way, they’re all pressed together, and Alana blearily realized she’s never been this close to Hannibal before. He was all heat and hard muscle, worrying her bottom lip between his teeth gently before biting down hard enough to make her squeak. Hannibal pulled away, both of them breathing heavy. “Forgive me, Alana. I seem to have forgotten myself.”_

_He moved to disengage, but she clutched at his shoulders, preventing it. Alana knew something had stripped away the walls in her eyes, she knew he must have seen the thin layer of desperation covering all the worries in her mind. I just want this. She thought to herself, simply, honestly, and why shouldn’t she? “I don’t mind it.”_

_“No scolding me for crossing a line?” An amused smile bubbled to the surface on his face. One of his hands reached upwards to brush the hair out of her face._

_“You’ve flirted with the line for so long. Crossing it seemed inevitable.” She breathed, not disguising the fact that her eyes were enamored with his mouth and not the words coming out of it._

_Hannibal studied her then, fingers tracing the line of her cheekbones. “Do not take offense to me asking if the pressures you are enduring fuel a reckless decision. I do not wish to take advantage.”_

_“You aren’t.” Alana assured him, pressing her lips back to his, weary of defending her desire to him. He kissed her back in earnest, twirling her around to back her into the house again while his fingers found the coat he’d just helped her into and unceremoniously pushed it off her shoulders. Somehow, the action made her feel warmer, and she found herself pushed into a doorframe, somewhere, she thought, in a hallway that connect the foyer, kitchen, and living area of his home. But Alana couldn’t be sure, the center of her focus most certainly not on the layout of Hannibal Lecter’s house, but on the way his hands were digging into her waist and the subtle movement of his knee slipping between her legs._

_The onslaught of sensations rose in her chest like a tidal wave and she had to break away from his mouth, simply to breathe. Hannibal responded by claiming her neck with a series of sensuous kisses and, unexpectedly, a solid press of teeth against her collarbone. Alana arched into him, gasping for air as the sensation raced down her spine._

*~*~*~*~*~*

She shoots him deliberately, twice through the leg. The first shot hits his calf, and the second grazes his thigh as he buckles and winces. Hannibal braces his weight against the wall, but loses his grip and glides down it, a trail of crimson streaking the pure white of the wall. _I just shot Hannibal Lecter._

No. She just shot the Chesapeake Ripper. “Where’s Jack?” Hannibal doesn’t answer, but he raises his eyes to hers. Still hooded, overcast, but artificially softened. There is a drop of blood trickling from his lip, a perfect ruby red. “Where. Is. Jack?”

Alana re-orients the gun defensively and seriously considers shooting her lover through the chest. She could stand over his body while the blood pooled around her heels and _nobody_ would blame her. _I would blame me._ She realized, to her utmost disgust. He draws in a wheezing breath. “I’m proud of you, Alana. I always have been.”

Bile shoots up her throat, threatening to make her wretch. “ _Shut the fuck up!”_ the screech rips itself free from her throat and her cheeks run hot with salted tears, broken free from her blurred eyes. She flushes with indignation and Hannibal does not even flinch.

“Jack is in the wine cellar. I suspect he’s bled out by now.” _Jack, Jack, Jack, I can save Jack-_

She doesn’t think about how close they will get when she passes him on her way to the kitchen. When Alana is near enough, she kicks the abandoned knife away from his body. “Tell me, before you go. Why did you not shoot me through the heart?”

*~*~*~*~*~*

_Clothes were torn off on the way to the bedroom, Alana thought she must have torn buttons off of his expensive, fine shirts, but neither of them seemed to care. By the time he sunk his teeth into her naked breast, just above her rapidly pounding heart, she was so sincerely ready to finally consummate that affair they’d always lightly teased. Alana usually liked her sex slower, languid, the foreplay drawn out to near torturous extents, but she desperately needed to feel him, feel his heartbeat, and feel him inside her, alive. She clung to him like a life vest and let a sound of her need tear through her throat without abandon. “Hannibal-” She tried to tell him what she wanted, her hand weaving through his sandy hair as he dragged his teeth across her chest, but it seemed he already understood._

_“Patience.” Hannibal murmured, and she groaned. He nipped at her long torso as he moved downward, anticipation mounting in Alana, ready to topple her self-control. Hooking his broad hands under her knees, he pulled them apart and pressed a kiss to the inside of her thighs. Usually, men would say things to her during things like this. You’re so beautiful, I want to fuck you, and the like. But Hannibal didn’t need to say anything; the look on his face when he caught her eyes sucked the need for words away from her. She knew, by the quirk of his mouth and glint of his maroon eyes, that he’d waited for this and knew she had too._

_When he finally wrapped his lips around her, she shuddered, a breathless noise drifting out of her open mouth._

*~*~*~*~*

Alana is breathless. “ _Why did you not shoot me through the heart?”_ She stares him down, and he looks so small now. Lying in a small smattering pool of his own blood, quizzically gazing at her.

Alana does not answer. She maneuvers around him, hyper vigilant when she nearly must step over him. His eyes are the color of dried blood and the way the light hits his face make him look like a mere skull. _The symbol of death._ Her mind is a thrum of thoughts for Jack in peril,and when she’s out of Hannibal’s reach, Alana tears down the hall.Distant sirens wail as she rounds the corner and Hannibal is out of sight.

Her heart falls out of her chest and splits on the floor when she sees blood leaking from under the pantry door. Alana yanks at the knob, _locked,_ before smacking the smooth wood wildly with her hand. “Jack! It’s Alana! Open the door!” She thinks, perhaps, she hears a groan, but the noise could be the phantom wish of her own mind. “Jack!” She pounds it with a closed fist then, her gun clutched to the other hand, desperation sticking in her throat. Alana feels like she is drowning as she continues to scream Jack’s name.

She is petrified, for a split moment, that the nearing sirens are going to pass them, and the thought makes her knees buckle. Much like her former mentor, her former friend and lover, she braces her palm against the heavy wooden door and slides to the ground. Jack’s still-warm blood seeps into her clothes, and it’s a literal depiction of what she’s done.

His blood is on her hands because she wouldn’t see it.

*~*~*~*~*

_Alana believed she drew blood from Hannibal’s skin as she tore her nails across his back in abandon. She could feel it, slippery and copper scented between her fingers as she clutched at him, ankles hooked around the base of his spine. He growled when she broke the skin, his breathing even more labored as he drove into her, over and over at a punishing pace._

_Hannibal gripped her arms suddenly and threw them back roughly against the smooth sheets, running his calloused hands from her elbows to her wrists before locking his hands around them. He’d effectively trapped her. It only aroused her more, the feeling of leaving control to him. She tried to catch his mouth in a kiss, but he angled upwards and hit a particularly sensitive spot inside her, eliciting the involuntary reaction of throwing her head back against the pillows. Hannibal swooped in, placing his teeth around her neck and biting down, harder than ever before. The pure electricity from the action combined with his quicken movements pushed her over the edge of a chasm, hard. Her body pulses around him and he lets out a strangled noise; it is the most bare she’d ever seen him, more bare than when he was nearly hung in front of her. Alana’s climax still pulses when he follows her over the edge and something inside her is glued back together. Not perfect, not unblemished, not anymore, but a little more together, with a little more stability._

_She woke in the morning and rolled on her side to see him already up, looking at her, searching through her eyes with a look of content settled over his face. “You’re awake.” Alana smirked._

_“So are you.” And there was no need for words, just a kiss to wake them and assure her that this, truly, is what should have happened long ago._

*~*~*~*~*~*

Her cries are broken and her face is all heat. _I should have known so long ago._ When the paramedics come, they have to pry the gun from her hands and move her physically from the door. Do they think the blood is hers? Numbly, she realizes that they’re prying the door open and Jack tumbles out, still struggling, still alive. She’d defended their relationship to Jack just weeks ago. _I’ve known Hannibal since before you, before Will. He’s always been the most incredible friend. There’s nothing to worry about with him, any accusation is **preposterous.**_

The next thing she remembers, she’s in the ambulance and they’re talking about two victims instead of three. _Of course._ She thinks, in bitter humor.

Already 20 minutes away in a cheap motel, merely a pit stop before he really begins to run, Hannibal Lecter pries two bullets from his leg and grins.


End file.
